This chapter argues for a relational theory of blame which allocates responsibility for wrongdoing between an individual and a community. It examines what is of value in the Kantian approach to ...
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This chapter argues for a relational theory of blame which allocates responsibility for wrongdoing between an individual and a community. It examines what is of value in the Kantian approach to criminal justice, the focus on individual moral agency, from the way it is deployed within Kantianism, but also from the way it is attacked by historical, structural, or poststructural critiques. It negotiates a middle way between Kantianism on the one hand and structuralist and poststructuralist accounts of the individual subject on the other. The problem of charting a middle course between Kantianism and postmodernism is first outlined. The use of Rom Harré's social psychology alongside Roy Bhaskar's dialectical philosophy to develop a relational approach to agency in criminal justice is then explained. The chapter also establishes a relational approach to questions of individual selfhood and autonomy, which are the bedrock for the conception of a blaming relation.Less

Relationizing Blame

ALAN NORRIE

Published in print: 2000-10-12

This chapter argues for a relational theory of blame which allocates responsibility for wrongdoing between an individual and a community. It examines what is of value in the Kantian approach to criminal justice, the focus on individual moral agency, from the way it is deployed within Kantianism, but also from the way it is attacked by historical, structural, or poststructural critiques. It negotiates a middle way between Kantianism on the one hand and structuralist and poststructuralist accounts of the individual subject on the other. The problem of charting a middle course between Kantianism and postmodernism is first outlined. The use of Rom Harré's social psychology alongside Roy Bhaskar's dialectical philosophy to develop a relational approach to agency in criminal justice is then explained. The chapter also establishes a relational approach to questions of individual selfhood and autonomy, which are the bedrock for the conception of a blaming relation.

The chapter ties together the findings of the first two chapters, further developing a concept of legal order in the first-person plural by drawings on theories of collective action and linking these ...
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The chapter ties together the findings of the first two chapters, further developing a concept of legal order in the first-person plural by drawings on theories of collective action and linking these to Ricœur's contribution to a theory of identity. By grasping why joint action involves collective identity as sameness (idem) and as selfhood (ipse) it explains why legal orders are an interconnected distribution of ought-places, times, subjects and act-contents in which boundaries join and separate its elements. Moreover, by explaining why joint action involves collective self-inclusion and the exclusion of alterity, the chapter also adumbrates why legal orders are perforce limited, i.e. why and how legal (dis)order goes hand in hand with a domain which remains unordered from the first-person perspective of the apposite legal collective. The chapter concludes by exploring some of the implications of these ideas for the current debate about law in a global setting.Less

The Identity of Legal Collectives

Hans Lindahl

Published in print: 2013-09-26

The chapter ties together the findings of the first two chapters, further developing a concept of legal order in the first-person plural by drawings on theories of collective action and linking these to Ricœur's contribution to a theory of identity. By grasping why joint action involves collective identity as sameness (idem) and as selfhood (ipse) it explains why legal orders are an interconnected distribution of ought-places, times, subjects and act-contents in which boundaries join and separate its elements. Moreover, by explaining why joint action involves collective self-inclusion and the exclusion of alterity, the chapter also adumbrates why legal orders are perforce limited, i.e. why and how legal (dis)order goes hand in hand with a domain which remains unordered from the first-person perspective of the apposite legal collective. The chapter concludes by exploring some of the implications of these ideas for the current debate about law in a global setting.